Reasons to be Queen
by PinkWhirlWind
Summary: Relena is forced into action in order to save Duo's life, both confess their love to Heero 1+2+R
1. Default Chapter

Title: The Reason for Being Queen By: Nix Warnings. emotional, but if it were a deathfic, I'd have said so here, right? Now for get you know that. I'm not sure if this will be come massively AU or not. It was just written for my amusement. If you enjoy it too, way cool. Pairings.. Relena and Duo. both with eyes on Heero Yuy Disclaimers. If I owned them, Relena would never have worn pink.. so obviously I don't, ne?  
The Reason for Being Queen By Nix  
  
The report of Duo Maxwell's death seared into Relena deeper than her father's death. She sat in the solar, surrounded by plants and sunlight, the print out of the report lying in her lap. Perfect fingernails tapped the paper. She had to send a copy to Heero, to Quatre and Trowa. Thoughts jumbled in such a tangle in her mind that action just wasn't possible.  
  
Her father's death and the knowledge that she was a Peacecraft, not a Darlian had settled to the back of her mind, under a warm blanket of action, under the need for revenge and actions that she should take. Just like any story book tale, she'd done what a good daughter should do. She'd cried and she'd fought for revenge and she'd wrestled with the pain of lose, pinned it to the ground with her knew knowledge of who she was and her role in the world.  
  
Staring out the glass wall of the solar, into the wild garden, the space of her private home she'd given over to Duo, she found no prescribed way to deal with this pain. She could not scream in the streets because she'd loved a nameless peasant from L2, because her life emptied out of meaning without his flippant commentary on her writing, without his nearly constant rivalry. She could take revenge on no one for the pain he'd felt, for his death in the darkness of space. She could not wear black and ashes for the death of her lover and best friend anymore than she could email Heero the transcripts of when she and Duo had role played all three of them at the beach. So she sat in her chair, clutching the report to her chest, to the silk that clung to her braless chest, wet with tears that had no meaning at all in the polite world of Relena Peacecraft.  
  
Just three steps away, outside the sparkling clean glass of the solar, grew wild flowers, bright yellow sunflowers, blue daisies, three rose bushes all carefully braided together. She and Duo had done that together. A blue rose for Heero, violet for Duo, and yellow for her, and they'd knelt in the dirt, ruining her favorite pants, straining his still broken arm, and braided them all together. He'd told her then, that if he died, he wanted her to steal his body and put him here, in the only bit of land that had ever really belonged to him. She'd promised, finding death so far away. Death hadn't been real then.  
  
Even the battle in the Antarctic, Heero had seemed to die, but he'd come back. People died in mobile suits all the time and yet it was distant like some story. Duo's death had to be like that, she thought, trembling fingers shuffling through the printed out report. One page of text. Terrorist caught, interrogation unsuccessful, escape attempt, truth drugs authorized, unsuccessful interrogation, second escape attempt, prisoner terminated, such simple words. They could talk about anyone. It was the photos.  
  
She laid them in her lap, one hand holding her chest as she turned them over. Duo's smiling and rebellious face, his wrists in chains, a guard on either side of him. Duo's face, bruised, one eye swollen shut, abrasions. Rocking faster now in her seat, a scream silent in her throat, she turned the page. Duo on the floor of a cell, hair loose, shirt off, red welting, bruising over his back, his side caved in slightly, unmoving. That was before the first escape attempt.  
  
This feeling. It was anger. Fury. The ruin they made of him, the careless use of power, the unspeakably vile torture of her best friend in all the world, the only true friend she'd ever had. As if it would be different this time, she turned the photo. This time he was on his feet, falling backwards, blood spraying from his shoulder, hair still loose, as he fell backwards, arms up, held up by inertia as he fell. The look on his face though. it wasn't one of pain and hurt and the broken little kitten look, as Dorothy had once called it. Duo wasn't fragile and waiting for rescue, even as he fell from this bullet wound. He was pissed, he was so pissed, his face furious, snarling, as if he were looking for escape even as he went down.  
  
She stacked the papers all neatly again. It wasn't allowed, this anger. Nice ladies did not get angry. They negotiated, they might take revenge, but that was only hysterical need to avenge; it wasn't this primal rage that Duo radiated, even in the final days of his life. She pulled the report close and rose from her chair.  
  
"Be Queen of the World," he teased her from her memory. It took an anger, perhaps, to want it, to need it. A strength of will that came from more than just doing the right thing, a raw passion settled into her. She could not find his body. The report said that he'd been spaced with the garbage on the ship he'd been a prisoner on. The warm affection she'd felt for everyone before was nothing like this screaming raw need.  
  
Her feet were bare as she walked out of the solar, into Duo's wild garden. Kneeling among his, she set the report down on the softly worked black dirt and dug with her hands. Dirt under her nails, watering the ground with tears, she ripped up a whole in the ground, thrashed all the rules of her life, all the right behaviors, and when there was a hole, she shoved the report of Duo's death in, pounded it with her fist, until the paper tore and mixed with his plot of Earth. "Duo!" She screamed as she punched, rocking now here on the ground, until she dropped forward, drawing the dirt to her as if she could hold him again, as if she could bury herself with him, "DUO!"  
  
"Miss Relena," Dorothy said, standing in the doorway of the solar, a pleased smile on her face. "I fear I was delayed. I have news for you."  
  
Relena closed her eyes, and sighed raggedly. "Get away from me."  
  
"Now now, Miss Relena." Dorothy chided, reaching into the hole in the garden with two fingers, picking up one of the photos of the ruined report between two fingers, as if it were used toilet paper. "Is this any way to treat the gift of information? I'm so surprised at you!"  
  
Relena sat up, not caring about the dirt in her hair or her ruined clothes. Shinigami settled around Relena in her mind, with a passion that needed to vent, that needed to bleed of some of the agony in her soul. "I will end this war."  
  
"Oh, I expect you will, but don't look at me as if you're going to kill me. I bring you good news. I just couldn't bear to see you in such pain, Miss Relena," Dorothy said, her eyes glittering with pleasure. She pulled a small recording player from her coat pocket and held it out. "I am always thinking about you, Miss Relena. I'm so sorry I couldn't contact you and let you know that the report wasn't everything."  
  
She pressed play, and a very weak hoarse voice, hissed, "Don't listen to her 'Lena. Don't do what she wants."  
  
Dorothy rolled her eyes, looking towards the sky for a moment, before replaying Duo's words. "He's such a stubborn child! I just wanted to offer you a better understanding of war, Miss Relena. How would you like the opportunity to save Duo Maxwell's life? Going once, going twice."  
  
Relena was up out of the dirt before three, fists tangled in Dorothy's coat lapels. "Where is he?!"  
  
"Now now," Dorothy said, rising to her feet, pulling Relena with her. "One step at a time, Miss Relena." 


	2. two

Title: Reasons to be Queen 2/? By: Nix  
  
Why? Because the story was on my mind  
  
Warnings: Eventually it will be Heero/Duo/Relena, character development to me might be OOC to someone else.. Probably cussing  
  
Disclaimers: I do not own Gundam Wing or any of the characters.  
  
Type of story.. *thinks hard* Hentai, romance. I looked through the list of possible labels, and I think there will be elements of sap, but the most shocking is H/D/R.And now.. on to Heero's POV.. I hope I do him well.  
  
Feedback. I'd like to know, please, anything doesn't make sense or if you lose interest in the story at some point.. if you read it all the way through and find it passable.. please drop me an email to duo@neteze.com. It doesn't need to be more that "Read it." Or "Read it. Stopped when Relena did X." That would be very helpful, so I know where I lost the tension. And of course, if you don't feel like responding, that's way cool too! *smiles*  
  
Reasons to be Queen Nix  
  
"Don't you wonder what it's like, Miss Relena," Dorothy asked, easing them off the freeway and heading towards the center of the city.  
  
Relena ignored her. After accepting duo's death, her hear held back. The pain circled her though, as a hungry wolf might, just waiting for an opening to maul her again. She laid her palm against the cool glass of the window.  
  
Did she want to know how it was? How it felt? Did she need anymore pain? Did anyone ever need a lover beaten to death? "No one needs this, Dorothy."  
  
"War is not going away, Miss Relena. The honorable fight. The weak die. The dishonorable fight. The strong survive," Dorothy said, slowing the car as they decended into the parking garage. "do you thin you could make it all go away by just smiling?"  
  
That stung. Even Duo had told her to hurry up and be Queen. If she were, perhaps this would never have happened to him. "Blowing things up doesn't seem to be working either," Relena snapped, only to find Dorothy smiling at her.  
  
"oh very good, Miss Relena, but perhaps you haven't it. If you haven't tried it, then it's always a last resort, is it not?" She turned off the car, and bounced the keys in her palm. "If you haven't felt the passion of war, how can you home to find a solution?"  
  
"I will not fight, Dorothy. It is wrong."  
  
Closing her fist around the keys, Dorothy purred, "Oh, we will see!"  
  
Relena stepped out of the car, staring sternly at Dorothy. "I do not want to play a game with you."  
  
"But Miss Relena, you would like to see Duo Maxwell?"  
  
"Yes. Take me to him," she commanded, not really believing that Duo lived. This was the cruelest joke.  
  
"So impatient! You're really a warrior." It was as if she'd proved a point. As the elevator doors opened, she said, "He would have been spaced if I had not acquired him. I am doing my best to help you."  
  
"I will arrange transport for him to my home then," Relena pushed, arms across her chest, imitating Heero.  
  
"If you are strong enough," Dorothy agreed, holding the elevator door open. "You will need to be strong. I thought you were in love with Heero, though. I didn't really believe you had feelings for Maxwell until I saw you in the garden."  
  
Relena paused, turning to face her more directly. "Then why did you do this?"  
  
"Because the idea occurred to me during his chemical interrogation. He was of no use to anyone, but when he thought he was alone, he kept talking to you and to Heero. You realize the boy wants to have intimate relations with Heero Yuy as well as with you? It must have been a closely held secret of his. It only came out after the third dose of Veriacid. Do you know how effective that substance is? The effects were not very spectacular on Maxwell. If we had not had him hooked up to sensors, it would have been very difficult to tell when he was in distress. So did you know about his Heero lust?"  
  
She knew. It was something they shared, their mutual lust and adoration for Heero Yuy, oblivious as he was to everything they did. She pressed her hand to her mouth, trying not to think what kind of effect the drug would have been having to make Duo talk about his feelings so openly. Veriacid was denounced in most civilized kingdoms, for the sometimes permanent neural damage it caused. "Is he alright?"  
  
"I said he was alive." Dorothy held the door of the elevator open and motioned towards an approaching solider. "Maya, allow Miss Relena to visit the prisoner. Then see that she is returned to her home. Allow her to make him comfortable, if she wishes, supply her with any medical equipment and supplies she may request. Do not assist her in using them. Shot them both if she tries to leave with him."  
  
Numb, Relena followed the dark haired woman. This place, under the garage, had been set up fast, with brutal security.  
  
When the door opened and the light in the room blinked on, Relena thought she would die, right there, right then, that very moment. The safe boundaries of her understanding of the world, of the good nature of humanity dissolved under the acid stench of blood and urine, of the very fragility of the human body and the endurance of the human soul. Duo Maxwell's chest was lifting, falling. He lived.  
  
"Pain killers, scissors, bandages, antibiotics, thermometer, a basin and a stand, water, shampoo, clean clothes. Was he treated for the bullet wound?"  
  
"I believe he was, but I will bring you forceps as well. Anything else?"  
  
"I will ask when I need," Relena said stepping into the square metal box that was Duo's cell. She shrugged out of the coat she wore as the door closed, letting it fall to floor.  
  
In jeans and a loose cotton blouse, the blue one that was one of his favorites, she crossed to him. "Duo?"  
  
Other hand over her mouth this time, she did not know how to proceed, how to heal Duo's broken body anymore than she knew how to solve war, how to stop people from being willing to do this to another. So she stood there, her eyes locked on his bruised and swollen face. If she had never meet him, her heart would still have been breaking, all over again. That she loved him, extended that love to all victims of war, all those who fought for what they believed. With trembling fingers, she reached out to touch his forehead, a small space that had pale and sweaty skin, but no bruising.  
  
The texture of Duo's skin wasn't any different than anyone else's, really. It wasn't the softest or the most beautiful. As her fingers soothed, touching his hair, they moved over both abrasion and a blemish left from the last moments of adolescence. Pimples and bruises, he was all the wounded in the world to her then, not just her beloved friend. She remembered then, when she'd though he was just an arrogant peasant, trying to seduce her prince away from her and she groaned under the memory, under the strain of trying to find a way to cope.  
  
"'Lena? I told you not to listen to her," he whispered, his voice just a tiny echo of what it should have been.  
  
She leaned close, suddenly overjoyed to hear his voice at all. "Are you going to call me a baka for coming?"  
  
"Take too much energy," he complained, but the very edge of his mouth lifted in as much of a smile as busted lips could manage.  
  
The fingers of her other hand reached to touch his faint smile and he winced. "Don't cry on me. Stings."  
  
Only then she realized she'd been crying, helpless and frozen. With the back of her sleeve she scrubbed tears away from her cheeks and dried her hand over her stomach. "You know how us princesses are, always doing the pretty thing at the wrong time!"  
  
He tried to laugh, lips cracking a he smiled, laughter turning to painful coughing. "Careful princess, the thief will steal from you."  
  
"Can't steal what's freely given, Duo," she whispered more seriously, leaning forward and touching her lips to his rough ones. She expected it to be a small kiss, but his lips caught hers, sucking first her lip, then slipping a dry tongue into her mouth. She accepted and returned, equal need and love, tongues touching across the lies of proper behavior, crossing the dictates of comfort and time. It didn't last long, this kiss and it left Duo panting and half conscious, Relena's lips bloodied and her eyes wet again.  
  
When the door opened she turned around, arms out to either side in some instinctive protective movement. Maya wheeled a cart in. "It's everything you asked for. The water is in a storage container here, battery powered pump. I'll be outside, knock if you need something."  
  
One of Duo's fingers had hooked in a belt loop of her jeans and it took both of her hands reaching behind her back to get him to gently let go. His hands had grown in the year she'd known him, she thought, longer fingers, more muscular. man's hands. "I'm not much of a doctor, Duo Maxwell, so you have to wake up and help me."  
  
"Always wanted," he started, and found himself coughing and short of breath again. "Ribs, my ribs, can't breath well. Wanted to play nurse though. Gonna undress me, Nurse Relena?"  
  
He was half dead and he still had the spirit for joking. It was a mystery that she tucked away to think through later. "I'm going to get some oxygen for you. Don't you go away now, I'll be back to undress you."  
  
"Really," he tried to tease, the energy for it fading away as soon as she was out of touching range and he went still on the table, just the rise and fall of his chest.  
  
She knocked on the door, requested oxygen for him, was denied a manual on how to use it, but did get a cylinder of oxygen with a small little nasal delivery system. It wasn't all that hard to do and quickly she had a small flow going and the little tube in place under Duo's nose. Trying to sort out what else to do first, she said, "Let me know if that helps, please."  
  
"'Lena," he said, already sounding better, "'Lena what in hell are you doing here? Where are we?"  
  
"We're on Earth, Paris. I'm here playing doctor with you, but you have to get well, so next time you can play doctor."  
  
His eyes opened, blinked, and he didn't argue or resist as she moved him onto his back. "Might wanna turn on the lights, uh?'  
  
She moved her fingers over his face, above those violet eyes, and they didn't track the movement in the slightest. "Duo, it's okay. It's light enough for me, but your eyes should have dim, so they'll heal." She didn't know it wasn't true, not really. It was possible.  
  
The same hand that had linked onto her jeans was now doing it's best to work it's way up her shirt and she caught it, lifting his fingers to her face. "See? Just me, but you can't see the eye shadow this way."  
  
"Relena, I can't see at all," he said, his hand covering half her face, but now there was a desperation in his voice, something she'd never heard before. Duo Maxwell was never afraid.  
  
"Duo," she said, kissing his palm. "I will see for you until your sight returns. I want to take of these dirty clothes though and bathe you and I want to wash your hair. You'd do that for me, if I were hurt wouldn't you?"  
  
"'Lena, I'm not a stubborn little child all the time. I want to be bathed by my beautiful lover. What kinda baka wouldn't want to be. Does Heero know? How long have I been a prisoner?"  
  
"I don't know if Heero knows. I wasn't able to reach him. It's been about 36 hours. I don't know what time you were actually captured. I'm going to cut your shirt off. I have clean clothes for you. Tell me where you're hurt?"  
  
"You talk like me.. makes it hard to know how to answer, 'Lena."  
  
Leaning closer, she pressed her cheek to his, very gently. "Tell me where you're hurt."  
  
"Broken ribs, don't know about internal, but I'm still alive. Bullet in my shoulder. I don't know how I got caught. I'm an idiot, Relena."  
  
"Duo Maxwell! Don't you dare say such things! Or I'll pierce your nipple right here and now!" It was very forced, and she felt like a fool for saying it. Blush flared over her cheeks as she cut the clothe of his shirt right down the center of the chest. Before Duo, she didn't know people pierced nipples, let alone threaten to do it in a private imprisonment.  
  
Duo snickered, wheezing. "You're blushing."  
  
She wanted to deny it, but she didn't. "Did they hurt you?"  
  
"Aside from beating the hell out of me more than once, aside from shooting me and drugging the brains out of me?" He did his best to help her get the sleeve over his arm, bu then she just cut that too.  
  
"I meant," she said, setting the scissors down. Never in all her life had she imagined seeing a man with so many colors on his chest. "What do I do, Duo? How do I help?"  
  
"Run your fingers through my hair? Don't pilot a mobile suit like Dot-hell- bitch is going to ask you to. Relena, tell Heero how I felt about him?"  
  
"I do not want to deal with your death! I cried Duo! I cried and I rolled in the dirt like that cat we got drunk once! You're bad! I hurt because I thought you were dead! So don't tell me what to tell Heero! You will tell him yourself. I want to see you and Heero together! I want," she closed her eyes and clenched his fingers. "I'm weak, Duo! I love you! Don't talk about dying like it's something you already did! I am not burying any more photos of you in your garden."  
  
"Wow, 'Lena, get pissed at me, will you."  
  
Because she didn't know what more to do about his chest, she started with his hair, trying to undo the braid. "I will if you even think about dying."  
  
"What are you going to do with a blind house pet?" he asked, relaxing though, turning his head just a little to be able to lean it against her thigh at the head of the table, where she worked on his braid.  
  
"Duo. Do you remember when I thought I had to be perfect, to be this idea? And I always dress perfect and smiled all the time. I was plastic like, a little girl expecting my life to unfold like a story, imagining what I'd do if I were in a story. You do the same shit, Duo Maxwell, but you do it like you're either the greatest or you the one no one wants. Sometimes you're the most self-confident person, and sometimes you can't imagine what people see in you! Everyone has this image of you, of you being cheerful and unstoppable, even you. I see you though. I see the determination and the strength. If you don't get your sight back, you'll still be making things and living full of passion and your sense of humor will still get you in trouble. I had an email from Quatre last week. I wasn't supposed to tell you about it. What do I do about this blood? I don't want to rip your hair."  
  
"Man, 'Lena. I can't believe how hard it is to follow with all those words shoved together! No wonder Heero bitches me around. Can you soak that part of the braid? It laid under where I was shot, so it's probably pretty matted."  
  
"Are you in pain?" She asked, wishing her role would come up around her, make it easier to know what she was supposed to do. With fingers she refused to let shake, she got the basin filled with water, so she could soak that bit of his hair.  
  
"I hurt, Relena. But if you give me painkiller, I'll fall asleep," he said, slightly miserable.  
  
"Do you want to hear about the email?" She asked, as she pressed his braid into the cool water.  
  
"Yeah. Are he and Trowa talking about a bonding ceremony again?"  
  
"Did he ever stop? It's amazing what one learns when you get to be friends with someone. Duo, Quatre was writing about Heero. He saw Heero watching you, with this curious look on his face. On top of that, Heero bought two tickets to Lavender Spring, that movie you wanted to see."  
  
"Not out yet," Duo said, curious, slightly confused. "What are you trying to say?"  
  
"Heero likes you. I think he really likes you, or at least he's starting to be interested."  
  
Duo closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of Relena working his braid clean, then her fingers massaging his scalp. "Relena, you can't do what she wants you to do."  
  
"I don't know how much time I have here. I want to spend it with you, not arguing about Dorothy. They gave me two kinds of shampoo. Strawberry and Ocean Breeze."  
  
"The Ocean one. I wouldn't be able to protect you, if you go to this battle she wants you to go to."  
  
She put a little shampoo into her palm, staring at the blue gel for a moment. "I will not betray my principles, Duo. You understand that?" Even more now than ever before, she knew what they meant. Harm None extended to Allow No Harm as well.  
  
"'S all I ask," he reached back towards her, fingers searching until he found her shoulder. "Mobile suits are for people like me."  
  
She guided his fingers to her lips, kissing softly before starting to cleanse his hair. Peace was not for those who spoke only, for those who did not know the sorrow of war. It was for those who would move the world for it, use all the honorable tools in their hands. Duo nearly purred as she washed, managing to soak herself while she did it.  
  
Eventually she had him bathed, his ribs wrapped and hair re-braided, the clean clothes on him, and had even given him a shot of painkiller. He slept then and she stood there, holding the edge of his shirt, fingers in his hair, watching him breath, thinking about peace and the fate of the world. 


	3. three

Reasons 3  
  
Relena stared at the spinning lift handle. She'd seen it lift Duo up and away a dozen times. Never having been superstitious, she found it odd that she was afraid to touch it. It was Deathsythe. She'd argued over comics with Duo, woken up next to him, pretended she was Heero while they were playing together. They were maybe best of friends and she'd thought she was going to die when she saw those photos. Touching his gundam though felt like a deeper intimacy, felt like a violation almost.  
  
"Now, Miss Relena," Dorothy cooed, one arm on Relena's elbow, "Don't have second thoughts. I know how sad you were when you thought he was dead. No one will ever need to know you did this, only you and Duo. There aren't even any people to die fighting you. They're all mobile dolls."  
  
"I want to talk to Duo again," Relena said, feeling awkward in clothes that could have been Duo's. Black space suit, her hair pulled back and held with a black ribbon, she hardly felt the equal of the god of death.  
  
"Well, I thought you might like that. I am always thinking of your good, Miss Relena," Dorothy smirked, holding out a small ear piece. "It's two way, but just between you and Mr. Maxwell. There is a time limit. You will have half an hour, or so, to reach him. If you fail to reach him before that all of the mobile dolls will ignite, boom.. And this part of space will be so radioactive that Deathscythe himself will need a new coat of paint to keep from glowing."  
  
At every turn, there was a road block, a thick prison wall that forced her into this. Fighting wasn't right. The grief that she'd felt over Duo's death was unbearable. "They're only mobile dolls."  
  
"That's right, Miss Relena. I wouldn't want you to be a killer, a plain old solider."  
  
"Dorothy, I may kill you when this is done."  
  
"Tsk tsk, the thanks I get for saving your lover. You don't have to do this, you know. He would have died any way, from the wounds he foolishly provoked. No one will ever know about this, so you could just walk away. He's nothing more than a psychotic boy anyway."  
  
Relena's hand snapped out so quickly, the fury behind it welting Dorothy's face. "Duo Maxwell is a pure and heroic soul!"  
  
The idea that Relena might need anti- psychotic meds as well passed over Dorothy's face. "He is a warrior. Vibrant and vicious, and if you stood between him and his goal he would kill you. He is honorable because he fights so purely, like Heero Yuy, but his soul is not pure as you understand it. You think the world can live at peace, but you know nothing of battle. Stretch out your wings, innocent angel, Death needs you."  
  
"How fucking poetic." Relena spat, imitating Duo again.  
  
Some message came through on Relena's comlink and she pressed the button on her stop watch. "I'd hurry, angel girl."  
  
Relena pressed the comlink that Dorothy had given her into her own hear and grabbed the handle that would lift her up to the cockpit of Duo's gundam. As her feet left the ground an emotional chill wrapped around her, and she knew. She would kill to save Duo, Heero, and even her country.  
  
----  
  
Aboard Howard's ship, Quatre and Trowa worked on interpreting satellite images. The project started, at two in the morning, because Quatre's space heart had nearly exploded on him. When Duo had been reported killed, Quatre refused to believe it. Duo was his friend, a close friend. It had been Duo that had helped Quatre believe it was okay for him to love Trowa, to tell Trowa. He'd known Duo wasn't dead, even if the look in Trowa's eyes suggested Trowa thought Quatre was in denial. "There, do you see, Trowa, there, that's Deathscythe. That is defiantly the energy signature from Deathscythe."  
  
Trowa scratched his throat, ran his tongue over the inside edge of his teeth. "Deathscythe does not leave an energy signature, Quatre." Having said that, Trowa thought desperately for some way to comfort his mate. Almost nervously, he reached out and ran the top of his fingers down Quatre's arm. "That's what makes it Deathscythe."  
  
"Yeah," Quatre patted Trowa's hand, and smiled, that angelic tolerant smile that made Trowa's stomach churn, both attracted him and scared the hell out of him. "The code to engage stealth mode is something Duo never let out of his mind. Whoever is piloting Deathscythe does not know how to turn it on. Oh my. He have to tell Heero. Duo's just turned on the stealth mode. He's alive."  
  
On another screen, Trowa sat down and ran the data clip back and forwards. Fingers moving furiously, face impassive, he did the impossible and got a video link. Deathscythe tilted to the side, and rolled over the ground like a broken doll. If it had been Duo, he would have extended the wings, lifted off. "Quatre. That can't be Duo. Whoever is piloting Deathscythe is not. not a good pilot."  
  
Quatre touched the tips of his fingers to Trowa's cheek and the impassive mask released, a movement so small that only Quatre would see it really, just a slight movement to eyebrow, the edge of Trowa's mouth. "We're too far away to help."  
  
"I have sent the information to Heero and Wufei." Trowa turned and kissed the tips of Quatre's fingers. "Heero is in love with Duo."  
  
"I know."  
  
---  
  
Relena Peacecraft did not fit well in Duo's cockpit. It was a little too large for her, but her fingers mostly closed around the main gyro controls. In her ear, Duo was singing.  
  
"'Lena, honey, I'm stoned, you know that?"  
  
"I suspected as much. How do I see where I'm going?"  
  
"Oh.. open your eyes?"  
  
"Duo!" She screamed as something rocked Deathscthye to the side, making her feel like a rubber ducky in a bathtub. "Duo, help me! I don't know how to do this!"  
  
"Oh, well, first things first.. hit the blue X on the upper left of the cockpit. looks like a mark on wall, not a button."  
  
Clumsily, she got one hand out of the straps that held her hand to the gryro control and pressed the button. The shock of sound rocked almost as badly as the explosion had. and 'Don't Fear the Reaper' blasted out over the battlefield. "Duo!"  
  
"Just one time through, baby, okay? But look to your right. See the screen now. Touch the right upper corner and you can draw it to the center of the cockpit, if you like, but I like it to the side."  
  
"Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my GOD! Duo! There are hundreds of them! OH dear god!"  
  
Another blast actually knocked Deathscythe off it's feet, making it roll. Relena rolled inside of it, the seat of the cockpit suspended so that the it felt like she was rolling, that the gundam's body was her body. Even the impact on Deathscythe's shoulder felt like it left a bruise on hers.  
  
"FUCKING Hell Relena! You're busting up my gundam!"  
  
"I am sooooo sorry!" She said, crying. "I can't do this! You're going to die because I can't do this!"  
  
"Oh shut up, 'Lena! My death is just one of those war things. You're going to die cuz you're stupid enough not to listen to me. Now close your pretty eyes and think. You got your feet and hands in the gyro controls, right? Listen to the fucking music! You're the Reaper today! You're gonna kick Leo ass! Now, imagine, with your eyes closed, that Deathscythe is you. Get onto your hands and knees."  
  
"I can think of better times to hear you say that!" She snarled through their com link, but she was moving, the straps holding her as she seemed to hang there, a small girl soul in a giant sculpture of death.  
  
Duo chuckled, "All you think about is sex, 'Lena. No, wait that's me.. I can just see you and me and Heero all kissing each other at the same time. Yeah, I like that image!"  
  
The image was sooo striking, the blush so hot up her cheeks that she didn't even notice the next blasts, and therefore didn't respond to them. "At the same time! Duo! Have you ever kissed Heero? Really? Tell the truth?"  
  
"Get up on your feet! I have you on my view screen. Man, you pilot, you fix. You're gonna have so much polishing to do on Deathscythe when this is over!"  
  
"I am not polishing Deathscythe!" She found herself up on her feet though, almost felt like she fit in the gundam. "You're coming to a dinner party, in a tux, and taking to people about peace!"  
  
"Think it'll do any good? Reach behind you, to the left, three buttons, kinda.. try real hard to pretend that 'Scythe is you, press them in order 2, 3, 1, 2, 1. The scythe'll drop down into your hands, then uh. move your heel, your left heel in the ground, and it should turn on."  
  
"Who came up with these controls? This is insane!"  
  
"I kinda," Duo started, then lost his words in a fit of coughing, small moans in between and it all came so clearly through the comlink. To Relena it was as if she could feel every stab of his ribs.  
  
"Duo. Don't you die. We have that convention to go to."  
  
"Little kid stuff," he wheezed. "'Lena, you always get me to be such a kid. I fixed up 'Scythe. It's mine. No one pilots it, but me, and uh, you. Feel the staff in your hands?"  
  
"Yes," she said, surprised at how easily her hands seemed to control the huge gundam hands, to hold the slender staff of the scythe.  
  
"Feel the three oval buttons? Press the middle, and jam the whole thing behind you to the left on the count of five. Count with me, don't fuck it up. Two, three, FIVE!"  
  
Relena did, feeling the vibrating energy of the spike at the end of the scythe meet resistance. She looked over her shoulder. There like a yellow marshmallow was a leo on the end of the scythe, green energy bleeding around the wound in it's cockpit. She screamed, stumbling away from the man she just killed. "NO NO! NO! Duo! No! I can't! Oh, Duo! I killed him! They were supposed to be mobile Dolls! Dolls!"  
  
"RELENA PEACECRAFT!" Duo shouted, a verbal slap through her comlink. "You didn't do it! I did. I did it! He was going to kill you and *I* killed him. Now, I'm gonna tell you how to release the wings, turn on the thrusters.. you can auto pilot back to somewhere safe. So shut the fuck up Relena, I did it, not you!"  
  
Coughing took him again though and she turned, seeing the falling hull of the ruined leo as . as someone who made Duo cough and hurt. If she left, Duo would die. Worse. If she left, she'd never face her own ideals again. She'd never speak of peace again. Queen of the World. Duo shouldn't die. No one should have to die for freedom. Freedom should just be. Feeling an ice colder than space wrap around her heart, she gave up herself for a moment, for an infinity. Right was right. It didn't matter. She would save Duo. She would stop the killers, the oppressors. "Duo."  
  
"'Lena?" He replied, but this time his voice was so weak, and she looked at her count down. She'd had 30 minutes, only 16 were left.  
  
"Love is the root of peace. Without love and the hope of Heero kisses, people will hold onto any insane thing. How do I disable them? I see you. The screen says you're three miles distant. Best way to reach you?"  
  
"I ain't sharing Heero with no body, but you." He said, but she could tell that there was something worse wrong with him, his voice was more raspy now, as if he couldn't quite get enough air. "Can I give him a blow job as he's marrying you?"  
  
"Only if I can do him as you marry him," she said, swinging the dual beams at the other end of the scythe, laying leo parts over the field until she could get an opening, enough of an opening to run. Power, this she understood so much more clearly as she ran, in the gundam, one of the most powerful weapons humanity had ever created. The ground shook under her feet and she felt the loneliness that must sit in Heero's soul, in Duo's soul, as they rode such a powerful sword, the distance that made power and loneliness into a lack of humanity. "I love you."  
  
"Love you too," he whispered. "Think you could name a kid after me? Duo Yuy, Duo Peacecraft?" He laughed then, an abrupt, cut off laugh. "The hatch, don't open it with the handle. Explodes. Photo of you & Heero. Black diamond in corner."  
  
"Don't talk, Duo." She said, having reached him finally, reached the broken leo hull that housed him like some obscene crypt. The remaining leos, only about ten of them. There had only been about twenty to begin with. Relena didn't know why there were there, why they were still trying to stop her from saving her friend when she'd killed so many of them already. "LEAVE me alone you fuckers! Just leave me alone!"  
  
They didn't though, and she fought, sobbing and kicking like a proper girl. The scythe got dropped some where in the scuffle and functionality of Deathscythe started to fail. Soon she couldn't move her left arm. She'd never been so furious as one of them kicked Duo's leo, rolling him over, making him scream inside the cockpit prison. Punching with her remaining fist she couldn't stop herself from rolling back, going right over helpless leo. 5 minutes left and she hit the black diamond on the photo that released the hatch on Deathscythe.  
  
Scrambling over dirt to where Duo was, gunfire and blasts rocked around her, knocking her back as she clawed her way over the burning metal of the leo. She didn't care as the remaining leos surrounded them. She just wanted the hatch open! She'd get Duo out and they'd.. she didn't know what they'd do! But she had to touch him! Had to see him again. "Duo! Talk to me! Please! Anything!"  
  
"I've never kissed Heero. You wanted to know, right? Damn, Relena, I didn't mean to get you killed. Why didn't you listen to me?"  
  
"How do I open this!"  
  
"Relena. Incoming."  
  
She turned then, looking at her watch.. two minutes left. Her palms were burned too, from climbing on the burning metal. It was odd, she thought, how she could look at that, see the blisters, but not feel the pain, not feel the tears on her face until they landed in her hands. And then, from right above them, white wings out like some angel, Wing descended. The leos didn't move, but Relena went back to banging on the hatch of Duo's leo. Heero. She couldn't process it. Heero. Heero would save her! But she wasn't leaving without Duo!  
  
The giant energy blade slashed over her, close enough to leave the scent of burning hair in her face. Leo parts flew and then one white leg was on either side of them and with two minutes left, one huge hand reached down and picked up the broken, armless, legless hull of the leo, with her clinging to the top, cradled them close to the gundanium chest and lifted off. A sort of jump that took them up, away from the 45 seconds left until the remaining fighters detonated.  
  
"'Lena? I'm floating. I'm gonna puke."  
  
"Heero's here," Relena sobbed, holding to the metal of the leo, burned fingers gripping any where there was room to hold. The Com link when dead when the blast ignited, sending heat and radiation up around them, around the feet of the gundanium angel carrying them. Then Relena felt like she was floating too, floating in between the men she loved. A warrior for peace, an angel of death and the bridge between them.  
  
Author's Notes:  
  
One more chapter, I fear.. Next chapter on Howard's ship. and Relena tells Heero how Duo feels.. and Duo tells Heero how Relena feels and.. Relena comes to terms with what it means to be Queen.. And the sacrifices one makes. And the rewards as well.. 


	4. four

Reasons to be Queen 4/? By Nix  
  
Notes: Been a long time since I updated, but I got a review and it made me think of this story again. I can't wait till I can get to a trio lemon!  
  
Warnings: A bit AU.  
  
Pairings: working towards 1x2xr or Rx2x1, depending on the day.  
  
The first three chapters of this are posted on MediaMiner and on ff.net  
  
The trip to Howard's ship was timeless. It was supposed to be one of those timeless, profound moments where the answers to everything occurred to her, but mostly she was too concerned with holding onto leo held against Wing's chest. Everything evaporated in the need to hold on; even the burns on her hands didn't fully register.  
  
Howard watched them approach from the deck. Trowa stood with his shoulder touching Quatre's. The smaller blond stood almost protectively in front, one hand lying against his lover's thigh. They were young enough to believe in the myth of their own immortality. Guilt fogged up around them too, as Wing beat in reverse, slowing and moving towards the landing deck. The small woman clinging to ruined armor seemed too small, to impossibly vulnerable to be real, but recognized her heart and confirmed that Relena was with them, that Duo lived still. Quatre thought he should have been relieved, but there was something unsettling in the confusion that was Duo, and the violent anger that was Relena.  
  
Wing land air pushed out and up as wings drew in and the armor of very strong man went to one knee, the huge metal hands shaking as they drew back from the limbless leo. They'd argued the last time they'd talked, over parts, over salvage and really over whomever it was that Duo had been talking to, laughing with, over the someone Heero hadn't known who it was.  
  
Heero had been in a dark, argumentative mood when Trowa had sought him out, right after that last conversation with Duo. Trowa had explained what only a true best friend really could. This feeling Heero struggled with them, this urge to grab Duo and shake him, to argue with him until the other person went away, this was called jealousy. The scientists responsible for Heero had summoned him sometime after his 17th birthday, collected samples of reproductive fluid, so that his unique DNA could be passed to another generation. After that, for reasons he had not investigated, the rising sexual tension he'd been experiencing had completely evaporated. Until Duo Maxwell smiled at him.  
  
Heero thought about these things as he jumped out of Wing's cockpit. He thought about these things as he heard Relena screaming his name, screaming for Duo as they dragged her back from the metal casket. His last conversation with Trowa came back to him, as their eyes meet. He was in love with Duo Maxwell, laughing, dancing, shaking the sheets at night when no one was looking, chocolate syrup on his pancakes, endlessly playing with his braid, this impossibly human warrior had stolen Heero's heart.  
  
Trowa held up a hand, defusing tool pressed to the external release. "It's rigged, a minute."  
  
The metal of the leo wasn't hot anymore, thought the scent of Relena's burning hands flicked in his memory and he looked over to her, to see her struggling against a couple of Howard's boys, tears on her scorched face. She loved Duo Maxwell. She was the one he'd been talking to, laughing with. He'd fantasized about marrying her, having a little house, a baby, but it was an ordinary fantasy, a daydream of mission peace. He did not want to think about what they'd find when they opened the hatch. Mission alive had replaced mission peace and the outcome of that, of Heero's human spirit lay under this hatch.  
  
"Stand clear." Trowa said, tossing the defusing gear back towards Howard. None of them really wanted to open the hatch. Relena was screaming about a hospital. They had an OR, field medicine. Any of them could pull a bullet, set a bone, bandage a burn, but delicate surgery, internal damage, nerve damage from chemical weapons, there wasn't really much they could do for that, short of a quick bullet to the head. Heero laid a hand on Trowa's arm, shook his head, then motioned his friend away. Trowa reached out and gripped Heero's forearm, held tight for a moment, then nodded.  
  
Heero could hear Relena yelling still and he had no time to explain to her how what he was probably going to do would be a kindness, to all of them. He gripped the hatch handle and pulled. It rose, hissed on hydraulics and exploded, but instead of heat and shrapnel, only streamers and silver confetti flashed around. Dorothy's voice cheered, "Well done, Miss Relena! Don't feel bad; you did your best to save him! Death is part of war as well though. Try to remember that in your peace games."  
  
Heero's eye twitched and he muttered promises of death in Japanese. Quickly he disengaged the hatch and shoved it farther away, sending it crashing to the deck and quickly surveyed Duo. Pulse 143, respirations 30, bleeding, broken ribs, one bullet wound, excessive facial bruising, but there was nothing that he could not hope to see mended. Until Duo opened his eyes, Heero was laying out his rescue operation. Violet eyes, so echoing through his memory, almost all his positive memories involved those violet eyes. "Duo?"  
  
"Heero," Duo wheezed, hardly believing that he was somewhere near Heero. "Gonna be late with those parts."  
  
"Idiot," Heero said softly, tenderly. He reached out, surprised by his betraying hand and touched Duo's face, ran his fingers over swollen lips. "Are you going to live?"  
  
Slow eyes blinked. "Don't make me cry! Salt burns, you know."  
  
"Disinfects. How long?"  
  
"Take care of the blood loss, I don't know, but Heero they gave me some drug, hurt like a fucking bitch. You gotta blow them up for me, okay? And Heero, I can't see." Tears did fall then, drawing Heero's fingers to wipe them away. "Shoot me?"  
  
"I liked you, Duo, a lot. I started remembering me before the training when I was near you. Would you have gone to a movie with me?" Heero pulled his pistol, chambered a bullet as quietly as possible. "I'd have bought you popcorn and tried to hold your hand. Would that have been okay?"  
  
Duo tried to lift his hand, but found no bones there to get any leverage. "Yeah. I would have tried to kiss you though. Heero, 'Lena's my best buddy, like Trowa's for you, and she loves you. So like, if you ain't got anything better to do, would you take her instead of me? She might kiss you too, but she bites, so be careful."  
  
Heero's arm slipped under him, lifted him, hand holding his head up and he got the hug he'd wanted for months. "Kiss me now, Duo? Don't worry about Relena Peacecraft. I think she'll be okay." Heero quietly pushed the safety off. "Kiss me Duo, because that's all I really want."  
  
"Help me, 'kay? I can't move my fucking head. What a time, uh?"  
  
Heero took Duo's mouth, kissing him like he'd seen in the movies, lips and tongue, the language of forever, while at the same time he pressed the barrel of his pistol, enough power to shot through steel against the back of Duo's head.  
  
Quatre screamed. Relena screamed. Heero didn't listen. Duo's tongue danced in his mouth, with the taste of blood and soda pop, innocence and violence. The pistol popped and Heero fell over the side. Duo slumped back into the cockpit, his braid trailing over the side. Relena fired again, just because she was so pissed. The man she'd stolen the pistol from was holding a broken nose, the one that had been on her other side, held some broken testes. She spun on them.  
  
"You misguided fools!" The pistol steady in burned hands, she somehow found a path up the side of the leo until she stood on the chest of the thing, looking in at Duo, pistol trained on a very pissed and confused Heero. He held his bleeding hand, his own pistol having skidded off the edge of the ship. "Okay you fuckers!" she snarled, pistol held in both hands. "This is the meaning of peace! We don't die if we don't have to. We shot only to save a life. The war is henceforth finished. Over! The rules are new. I'm rewriting them in favor of logic and truth. I am the Queen of the World. We do not take the easy way out because it's more work to do it right! As long as people's goals are to keep fighting, that's all we'll do. We win this by declaring peace. Peace now. You!" She pointed the pistol at Heero. "Help him survive! The next time you kiss him, you better not try to blow away my best friend! He loves you, dumbass!"  
  
Duo laughed, a small little sound that echoed out of the cockpit. "'Lena! Queen of the World. Go, 'Lena. You shoot Heero again, I'll kill you."  
  
"You just do that," she snapped, nose twitching. She wasn't imitating anyone. She was Relena Peacecraft and there would be peace on Earth and beyond.  
  
Heero climbed back up, giving Relena an I might kill you later glare. The chance that Duo might recover enough to kiss him again, and this little greedy voice in him echoed up from before his training, he wanted to live as well. As gently as possible, he scooped Duo up into his arms. Being dropped back into the cockpit more than aggravated whatever possible back injuries he had. Blood loss seemed more immediate.  
  
The rest of the ship mobized to provide medical care, doing what she'd said, the old rules not applying just then.  
  
Right from Howard's ship, she required the company that made veracid to send drugs to ease the damage. She bought media spots and she campaigned right to the people of the world. Her message was so unlike any heard before. Some people called her Queen. Some said saint. Very few complained when she announced her intention to marry both Heero Yuy and Duo Maxwell. The story of their wedding in the next chapter.. 


	5. five

Reasons to be Queen 5/? By Nix  
  
Disclaimers: I'm just enjoying writing them, I don't own them.  
  
Notes.. probably gonna be a short chapter.. and Heero says he's not ready for a wedding, at least not to Relena. He says the ending of the last chapter was her day dream not his.  
For Heero time moved slower. The first day on the ship, they didn't have nearly adequate medical equipment and he became painfully aware that he was not a doctor. He stood for hours next to Duo, holding his hand, even after he realized he had two broken fingers. Relena became the warrior for both of them and somewhere in the ship she was using words and logic in place of their gundams.  
  
If Duo had died somewhere else, Heero knew he would have just gone into mission mode, just dropped away from what remained of his humanity. If Duo had been dead when he opened the leo, probably the same thing, but Duo had been alive. So fragile and so precious and Heero was not sure he would ever pick up a gun again, ever. The programming laid down into his mind so effectively had cracked under the smiles and laughter, the friendship of Duo Maxwell. That same programming had come to an abrupt ruinous halt when it had agreed that ending Duo Maxwell's life was the most logical choice. Heero's humanity, as paradoxical as it was, had found it's way to reassert itself, to demand an end to being a solider at all, when he'd accepted that if it were right for Duo to die, then he would die with him.  
  
And so he stood there, holding Duo's broken hand, sorting through the shattered remains of his mind, trying to find who he would have been if he had not become the Perfect Solider.  
  
Fever took Duo before the doctors that Relena promised could arrive. Heero stayed with him, on into the night, washing his face, gentle around the bruising, keeping his lips moist. Near morning, the first warm light of the sun slipping through the portal, Relena joined them.  
  
Heero didn't want her there. The strength of his programming faded more with each movement Duo made, each whimper, every time Heero's fingers brushed his skin. Emotions that he knew the textbook name for, but could not remember experiencing returned to him, and he knew what he felt for Relena. Jealousy. Hate. It was logical that she had been with him, lain with Duo. It made the hair stand straight up on Heero's head. She had had the strength to believe in Duo's life when Heero had not, and the feeling with that was guilt. It reminded him that his hand hurt because she'd shot him. She and Duo had too much in common. Duo had shot him to protect her. She'd shot him to protect Duo. It made Heero feel something else that he'd not wanted to feel, something that was more familiar than he liked. Shame.  
  
She hadn't slept, he though, red eyes, wearing salvage crew pants and an oversized shirt. Standing in the door to the medical suite, it was as if she could feel him wishing her away. She sought his eyes and he refused to back down, so they stood there, eyes locked, battling silently. Until she stepped into the room, until she had to reach out to the table to keep herself from falling down, Heero thought he really might kill her. Her hand held to the edge of the operating table Duo lay on, knuckles white, wetting her lips with a quick tongue. "They'll be here, soon. I'm sorry. If I'd understood, I would have."  
  
"Would have what? Do you really think your words are going to bring peace?"  
  
"Yes." She straightened and walked to the head of the table, her fingers brushing sweaty strands of brown hair from Duo's face. "I will bring peace. Are you okay?"  
  
Heero hated her. She was everything he was not. Duo loved her. "I'm fine."  
  
She arched an eyebrow, disbelieving him. "Heero Yuy," she paused, smiling, for some reason he couldn't understand. "You do love him, really and truly."  
  
He ground his teeth. Humility was an emotion that took practice and Heero's was all bound up in being distant from life in general. To be so involved in a moment, humility just felt like worse shame. "You love him too."  
  
"So much love! Peace has to flourish in a world like that. Yes, Heero, I love him. I didn't realize how much, how deeply until this. It makes me understand peace. Duo loves you. He adores you. He desires you. It's probably not right for me to know that. He's my best friend, you see. I know it's not the time, but give yourself some time. I'm not mad you, for what you were willing to do."  
  
Heero let go of Duo's hand, caressed the fingers, and turned his back to both of them. The programming almost had him again then, the safe numbness of being something both more and less than human. "How can you not be?"  
  
"Because if he'd asked me to end his pain that way, I would have done the same. It was standing back away, being the one left living that I couldn't stand."  
  
Heero shrugged, not feeling any better at all. "You saved his life because you were jealous?"  
  
"I saved both of you. I saved myself at the same time, so really, it was you that saved me, and him. Maybe you saved the whole world. Will killing me make you feel any better?"  
  
Closing his eyes, Heero shook his head. "I am nothing. I just used to be a solider."  
  
"You are everything, Heero. You are everything to me. I love you as much as I love Duo, and don't ask me to explain how I can love you both."  
  
"I'm doing good to deal with loving one. Don't ask me to love two."  
  
"I'm not asking, not for that. What I am asking, is that you think about how much you love him, and you just give peace a chance."  
  
"That I can do." Even his voice sounded odd to him, as if it were someone else's voice. He didn't hear her leave. He did hear the doctors arrive, all proper and medical, like they'd come to save some diplomat or head of state.  
  
They didn't pay him that much attention as he stood as far back as he could and they worked with Duo. He found his next mission. He was done taking lives. He wanted to save them. And he would keep Duo Maxwell safe. And Relena, because, over the next month, as Duo healed, he began to believe that she could maybe make real peace. 


	6. six

Reasons5  
  
Reasons to be Queen 5/?  
  
Sunlight warmed his cheek, warmed the sheet laying over him, making it smell impossibly white and like some commercial airing during some happy little kids' show. Duo half expected bluebirds to be singing outside, but he thought, sorting through his various senses, there was something wrong. It was warm, smelled sweet, way too clean, with a slight scent of flowers. He could hear someone breathing next to him, sleeping maybe, slow easy breaths, too relaxed, probably Quatre. His mouth wasn't dry, lips weren't sore. In fact, nothing was sore. He felt really good. Not bad for having been as fucked up as he knew he'd been when he went to sleep. And wow, then he remembered kissing Heero.  
  
He replayed the kiss in his memory, and he couldn't find what made it so special. Heero's trembling lips, tongues and coppery blood between them, but it wasn't like any kiss he'd ever had. He didn't understand. A kiss was a kiss. The mechanics were something he knew as well as hydraulics and photon disruptors. This kiss with Heero touched him someplace deep, made him feel white and clean and like he was only seventeen. Heero's kiss was the one he thought he'd never have, the one that was too good for him.  
  
"Duo?"  
  
It was Quatre, sounding so sweet and concerned. Duo blinked in the darkness and squeezed Quatre's hand. "Hey, Kat. Where are we?:"  
  
"We're on Oahu. A little bit outside of Honolulu. Heero and Relena will be here in an hour or so. The war is over, Duo. They created a successful coup."  
  
"It's over? Really over?" Duo sat up, both hands moving to scratch his head, to check on his braid, which was done in a ponytail at the base of his neck, and banded about ever foot till the end. "How long till morning?"  
  
Quatre stood there, the corner of his mouth twitching. The sunlight brought out a bit of red in Duo's hair and the way Duo tilted his head and looked at him, it was like he was looking right at him. Quatre supposed that he was, but just homing in on him as if it were really dark, finding him by the sound of his breathing. "We're in Honolulu because the world's premier specialist in optical nerve damage is here."  
  
Deadpan, Duo blinked, then lay back on the bed, fingers moving over his own face, as if he were making sure that all the parts were still there. "I'm still blind. Do Heero and Relena know?"  
  
"None of us knew until you woke up. It's been three weeks."  
  
"Did I wake up early?" Duo knew he hadn't. If they'd gone to all this effort, had to be a lot of medical effort if he felt this good in only three weeks, they'd have controlled when he woke up.  
  
"They meant to be back, Duo. It's been a lot of work transitioning the government."  
  
"I'm sure." Duo said, adding two and two, or rather One and Relena. Three weeks and they had to know it was a good chance that he'd be blind, devalued. The feeling from the kiss flitted back to him. Spiritual, too sweet to be real. Heero was going to shot him, just like he'd asked. The kiss was a good bye? He didn't remember the angle of the weapon, that it had been at the back of his head, pointing straight through to Heero. Duo imagined them, standing next to each other, all fancy in nice clothes. The king and queen of the world. Queen and Knight, it sounded better than Knight and pawn, or Queen and pawn. "Quatre, I got any clothes around here?"  
  
"Um, yes, Duo. Trowa and I picked up some things we thought you'd like. You're a little smaller than you were. Are you hungry?"  
  
"Not really." Duo shoved the covers off and swung his legs over. He had money in his account, at least enough for a few months, not counting passage back to where he could get a sweeper ship to pick him up. Why did that feel like a death sentence? Like his heart was going to rebel and just stop when he got his feet on the floor.  
  
It would be better this way, he told himself. Relena and Heero were the two that could guide the world, keep it on some kind of sane path. She had the words and the breeding. He had the power and the honor. Relena loved Heero and so maybe she could have that kind of spiritual, sweet, soul lighting kind of kiss with him.  
  
Relena. Duo closed his eyes, and it was so easy to see her. She imitated his smile and he knew it. That time they'd planted roses, pink, blue, and violet, braiding them all together, laughing and talking about how they both loved Heero. He expected they'd both known at the time that they couldn't both couldn't have him. It had been so nice though, so like belonging to share the dream. "So, Quatre, give me some clothes and what kind of food do you recommend, uh?"  
  
Duo could hear the smile in Quatre's voice. "I'll make you a fruit smoothie, with soy protein. Strawberry or peach? Oh, Duo I'm so glad you're okay! The world is going to be so wonderful now! Peace, real peace! We found you a Tokala tee-shirt, will that be okay? How about some kakis?"  
  
"That'll be wonderful, Kat." Duo said, masking a smile, sounding out the size of the room by how many steps it took Quatre to reach the dress/closet. "Bathroom in here? Who the hell has been shaving me? They've been missing my throat."  
  
Quatre giggled nervously. "Trowa did it a couple days ago. I did it this morning. I'm sorry. I don't have to shave my throat."  
  
"Arab," Duo teased, not knowing what that had to do with anything, but enjoying the safety of being able to tease with someone, trying to stay very much in the present.  
  
"American," Quatre teased back, "Duo, try not to worry about your eyes. There are other treatments we can try."  
  
"I'm not worried," Duo replied, truthfully. He'd had his kiss and he was going to do the best thing for the one he loved and his best friend. "But, Quatre, right now, my eyes don't look, uh, fried do they? All nasty and white or something?"  
  
Quatre set the clothes down on the bed next to Duo and reached out to take his hand again. "No, they look normal. It's just the optic nerves which are," he paused and squeezed Duo's hand, "Having trouble right now."  
  
Yeah, sweet Quatre. "No big deal then. Make me something to eat while I get dressed. I got shoes too, right?"  
  
"You're not going anywhere," Trowa added from the doorway. It was said gently, but with authority.  
  
"Who me," Duo asked, laying a hand on his chest, feeling the thin fabric of his hospital type gown. "I just don't want to stub my toes walking into things and all."  
  
"It's alright, Duo," Quatre said, sounding a bit mortified that his lover would suggest that Duo might try to leave. "Let me get you the sandals. It's a little too warm here for boots."  
  
"Hey that's great! I'd love to see the beach! Sandals are good for the beach, right?" Misdirection here, misdirection there, and this little piggy went to market.  
  
"Sandals are good for the beach," Trowa agreed and Duo was quite surprised to hear the expression of distrust in Trowa's voice. It wouldn't show on his face. He wondered if this was the way Quatre saw Trowa, heard his feelings in his voice, in the music they played together. "Heero sent a message that he will be landing their jet in a little over an hour. He's very concerned for you."  
  
That made Duo pause, think he should wait, wonder. Relena had risked a lot, worked hard to save him. He wanted to talk to her, to thank her. He wanted to kiss Heero again so badly that the intensity of desire totally eclipsed the grief coming on over his lost eyesight. He wanted to be here. To what? Come between Relena and Heero. They'd comfort each other. "Go on. Food for the invalid, uh?"  
  
"Duo?" Trowa questioned.  
  
Duo heard them embrace, the sound of Quatre nearly tripping over Trowa's foot, of soft tee-shirt against tee-shirt. "Trowa, I'm okay, you know, all there." Duo tapped the side of his head. "You think I'm gonna lay in bed for three weeks, then get up and walk out?"  
  
"I can understand why you might want to."  
  
"If you want to go away for a while, Trowa and I will take you back to L4 with us. You'd be welcome, very welcome. You can sort your thoughts out there. Just don't take off on your own. We want to take care of you."  
  
Oh yeah, that just did it, really did it. Duo Maxwell was not dependant on anyone. Anyone. Not Kat and Trowa, especially not Heero and Relena. "It's going to be okay, Quatre," Duo said. And he meant it, but not the way Quatre wanted him to.  
  
On the shuttle.  
  
Heero had not said one unnecessary word to Relena, not in the three days of conference. He didn't make any pretense of understanding how it was she fought, or how it was that she could make so many people agree with her. He was her personal security and he was her token of proof to the colonies that this was a true coalition, that the war was completely over.  
  
As they started the descent into Honolulu, he loosened his tie and wondered how long it would be until Duo woke. The walls of training that had broken when he'd kissed Duo had not come close to repairing. In side he seethed, passion, jealousy, hurt, longing, love, all these emotions roiled around with fear for Duo, fear that Relena's peace would not hold. He did not think he could go back to fighting, not the way he had been.  
  
Over the three weeks since he'd rescued Duo and Relena, he'd come to the conclusion that he'd accepted that in being willing to shoot Duo and himself, he'd paradoxically done the opposite. He'd woken a will to live that thrashed like a spoiled and scared child. He flicked the jet to auto pilot and turned to look at her.  
  
She'd been watching him for most of the flight. She was like some storybook heroine. Intellectually he could see her as beautiful, noble, brave, elegant. The spoiled child in him still saw her as a threat to what he wanted with Duo and he hated her still. It was illogical and dangerous. Submission to the main mission of Duo's happiness was peace with Relena. "What is between you and Duo? Have you agreed to marry?"  
  
She laughed then, the tension breaking over her like a tea bag finally pulled from the cup, disturbing the peaceful surface. She stretched as well, fingers poised naturally like some ballet dancer. Heero felt fear, fear because he could see why Duo might like her. "You're jealous."  
  
Heero grabbed the yoke of the plane, nails digging into the soft gel covering. "My feelings are not relevant. I simply wish to know what pre- agreed relationship exists between you and Duo."  
  
"We're friends. He is my closest friend, and I love him." She wove her fingers together, laid them in her lap, wondering why that sounded so inadequate. Friends. Love. It wasn't like what she'd seen in either of them during that kiss, not like the look of .. Of something she couldn't even define in Heero when he'd sat with Duo.  
  
"You weren't lovers?"  
  
The look of mission cold in his eyes scared her. She understood that, a bit, that she too would kill for Duo, but it still wasn't the same. "I wanted to marry both of you. I had made up my mind that I would have you both."  
  
"I will not marry you."  
  
Cold. The air conditioner must be on too high.  
  
"At first, it was because I wanted you. You were everything a fifteen-year- old girl could want, Heero Yuy. He kissed me first. It was hungry, angry, lonely. He was wild, like a stray cat."  
  
"Don't think you're better than him." Heero took a deep breath, and wondered where he was when Duo had kissed Relena the first time.  
  
"I did think that I was better than he was." She said, turning to look out the window, at the rising green in the distance. "Heero, it's so much more than I can put into words. Duo made me understand being human. Duo broke down my walls of refined indifference. We used to pretend it was you that we were making love to." That was more than she ought to have said, and she knew it, but Duo wouldn't hide things from Heero, and she missed the safe place of friendship she had with Duo. If there was one thing she'd learned beyond all the rest from Duo, it was that friendship started with honesty, not with perfect. "He and I used to wonder, which of us you might want, and sometimes we pretended that you would want us both. That was as silly as me thinking the war would just stop because people would get tired of fighting."  
  
Stunned. When had they had time to make love? The mental image of Duo and Relena together made Heero want to snarl and beat something. Duo was HIS! "I will not share."  
  
For a moment there was silence. Then she unclipped her safety harness and stood. "Look at me."  
  
He did and before he knew it her hand impacted his cheek, hard, sharp. "I fully realize that emotions are not something with which you are accustomed to dealing, however, until Mr. Maxwell is completely recovered from his injuries and the neurological damage caused by the veracid, you will place his feelings on an equal setting with your own. I fully understand that you have rejected me, but you WILL bear in mind that he is my friend and I am his. His self-esteem may take a dangerous hit if his vision does not return and he will benefit from having both of us act in a supportive way. Allow me, also, the favor of being the one to tell him that I withdraw my suit, that I no longer desire a romantic relationship with either of you. Do you understand what I am saying, Mr. Yuy?"  
  
One eye twitched. He felt like he was two millimeters tall, just high enough to stick to the sole of a shoe. "Relena," he said, hearing the cockpit door open, "I'm sorry."  
  
The door closed without response. Maybe humans weren't really meant for peace.  
  
At the house Quatre and Trowa had rented, Trowa grew increasingly nervous. It might have some kind of connection to Quatre, some sharing of the blond's space heart. It might just have been the look of Shinigami on Duo's face right after Quatre had promised they'd take care of him.  
  
"Do you think Duo will come down? You think he'll find the elevator alright? Maybe we should go up and show him the way to the kitchen."  
  
"Sunshine," Trowa said, using his most tender endearment for his lover, "I think we should be very careful about doing too much for Duo. He's very independent and proud."  
  
Quatre swirled some whipped cream, non-dairy so it wouldn't hurt Duo's stomach too much, he hoped. The smoothie looked delicious, magazine quality, as Quatre set a bit of mango cut on the shape of a heart on top. "That's just it, Trowa. No one deserves to be taken care of, pampered more than Duo. He was hurt so badly. Now we have to take good care of him so that he'll recover fully. Everyone enjoys being the center of attention, especially Duo."  
  
Trowa so did not understand his lover sometimes. Well, he understood, intellectually, but perhaps agreed was more the right concept. "Duo likes to be the star, the one doing things. He likes to be on stage. He doesn't like being taken care of. It's not a romance novel where love goes to the one who's hurt the most."  
  
Making a face, Quatre ran his finger though some of the smoothie left in the blender. "Where did you get that idea, Trowa? We love Duo if he's hurt or not. It's just.. Well, serious with him being blind for a while."  
  
"It's not temporary, Quatre. We both know that." Trowa got up from the table, looked out through the front hall, only to see a car's break lights flash, then pull out into the street. "Quatre, go check on Duo, now."  
  
"Hey!" Rashid exclaimed from the sitting room.  
  
"My wallet's gone!" Another voice snarled quickly.  
  
Trowa refused to grind his teeth, strode to the phone and hit redial.  
  
"Thank you for calling Aloha Taxi. What is your destination?"  
  
"Someone just called from here, where were they going?"  
  
"I'm sorry, sir. All destinations are confidential."  
  
Trowa did not want to try to get the police called on Duo. That would only make it worse. "I'm taking a motorcycle, going after him. Stay here." He didn't have to say that Heero and Relena were going to be pissed.  
  
Quatre watched him zoom out the drive, thinking that he'd said something wrong to Duo 


	7. seven

Reasons to be Queen 7 By Nix Winter  
  
Disclaimers: I don't own Gundam Wing.. I am working on a new original story that I own, but this isn't it.  
  
Warnings: Um.. none that I haven't already gone by in the course of this story so far.  
Duo slowly slide over sideways in the back of the cab, panting, skin flushed, sweaty already. Laying on his side, he took all the money out of both wallets, shoved both the empty ones into his back pocket. He'd return them at the shuttle port, drop them in a postbox or so. He counted fifteen bills, all the same size. He hated American money, suddenly.  
  
"So, man," the driver said, and Duo could hear the concern in his voice, good old fashioned Islander Aloha thickening the words, making them sweet and humid like the air. "Where you say you wanna go?"  
  
"Shuttle port," Duo said, voice too low, words clipped. "How much?"  
  
"Man, you sure? You don't look good?"  
  
Well, now there was a nice understatement. Twenty pounds under fighting weight, cheeks sunk in, IV bruises in his hands still, and a world gone full time midnight, Duo sighed, "I'll feel better when I'm home."  
  
"Yeah," the man said, going around a curve, and making a decision, turning onto another road, off the main one. "Yeah, no charge, okay? But I have to stop by and see my grandmother. It's my lunch time, time to break. I get you some lunch too, man. You like poi?"  
  
Duo smoothed his eyebrows, struggling to sit up. "You're fucking kidding, right? I gotta get out of here. You gotta understand," Duo said, sounding as intimidating as he could, one hand on the seat, holding himself upright. He was starting to shake though, exhausted and emotionally gutted because he'd just left his loved ones. "I can't be here when they get back. I'm just gonna fuck up their lives."  
  
"Oh yah," the man said, taking them down a bumpy gravel road, "I understand love. The heart is like a hurricane, just waiting for the rainbow. Man, you gotta meet my grandmother! She knows the answer to all the heart." The car came to a stop and Duo could tell from the way the man's voice got a little closer that he'd probably turned. "Nah, man, shake my hand, uh? You about to come to lunch at my place."  
  
Duo licked his lips and lifted his hand, slowly, taking a guess where the man's hand might be. His little finger brushed over a thumb, then his hand was caught in a gentle and firm grip. "Duo. I'm Duo."  
  
"I'm Gripe. Cuz man, that's what I do the most, gripe, gripe, gripe. You can't see?"  
  
Pain, Duo felt the expression of his heart's pain flicker over his face. "What difference does that make?"  
  
"I was just askin, yah know?"  
  
"Gripe!" A woman's voice, old, cheerful called out, "What you doin here, boy?"  
  
"I come for lunch, Grandma. I brought you a guest! I know how you like'em."  
  
"Oh a guest!" The door opened on his side, and Duo panicked.  
  
"Don't touch me!" He reached for his pistol, which wasn't there, of course, and a gentle hand patted his knee.  
  
"Now now, you see here. We don't mean no harm to you! Gripe thinks you need some lunch. I make you some lunch. Come inside," she said, still patting his knee. "You safe here. We just wanna help you."  
  
"I don't need any help! Just take me to the shuttle port." Duo moved away from her touch.  
  
"Gran! Who's here?" A younger woman, little more than a girl, asked. "Oh, Gran! That's Duo Maxwell. Gripe! What you bring him here for!?"  
  
"Loni," Gripe cautioned. "He needs help. He's sick, can't see. Gran can help him."  
  
"There is a price on his head! Gripe!"  
  
"A price on my head?" Duo half fell over again, caught himself on his elbow, and dropped the money he'd gotten. "Who?"  
  
"You can't see, Duo," the old woman asked, "Me neither. Come inside, please?"  
  
Duo wondered if he should have gotten out of bed at all, as his ears started to ring. "Can't see," he agreed, and couldn't do much more than sort of float as he felt Gripe take hold of his arm and haul him out of the taxi. He was too week, to broken to be of use to either Heero or Relena. It was so much better for them to no have him to waste their energy on.  
  
"Gran?"  
  
"Take him in the house, boy. Hurry up. Loni, get Mara. The boy needs help."  
  
"What's that witch doctor gonna do for him? He should go to the hospital."  
  
"Just do what you're asked, Loni!" Gripe growled, and carried Duo out of the heat of the sun, into someplace dark and air-conditioned. Losing contact with the world outside of his dreams, Duo imagined himself on the beach, the sun making Relena's hair blond, leaning against Heero, his arms around him, laughter and cold pop. He imagined Heero kissing his neck, whispering that he loved him, while Relena held his hand. Imagined that they really wanted him.  
  
Back on the road, Trowa shot around the same curve, missed the gravel road, raced all the way to the shuttle port, the hospital. Duo was just. gone.  
  
Heero drove Relena to the house Quatre had rented. Quatre was waiting for them on the porch, cell phone in hand. He remembered very clearly when Trowa had stopped him from firing on Heero, when he'd done something so wrong and nearly killed his own lover. Heero maybe recognized the look, he froze, one arm laying on the top of the car, door opened. Relena stepped out of the back seat, took in the look between them, steeled herself. "Duo?"  
  
"He woke early," Quatre said.  
  
Trowa came in the drive, came to a stop the longest point of the triangle. He said nothing, his eyes telling Quatre that he hadn't found anything. Quatre straightened, meet Relena's eyes, then locked eyes with Heero. "He woke early. His vision had not returned. He left, took a taxi, about an hour ago. We can't find him."  
  
Emotion and hope are difficult coals to hold sometimes. Heero and Relena looked towards the drive, both of them knowing how injured and weak and yet how capable Duo Maxwell was. It would be like trying to find a wounded lion in the savannah. She blinked. He turned to look at her, his eyes following the tears trailing down her cheeks. It was odd that her eyes were watching him as well, and he reached up to touch his own cheeks, surprised even more by the hot moisture he found. "We will find him," he promised her. "We will find him and make the world okay for him."  
  
"Thank you," she said, silently, only her lips moving. 


	8. eight

Reasons to be Queen 8/?  
  
By Nix Winter  
  
Disclaimers: I don't own Gundam Wing.. I am working on a new original story that I own, but this isn't it. This chapter is available as an audio file. Write me and ask for it, if you'd like to listen. www.onepinkrose.com  
  
Warnings: Um.. none that I haven't already gone by in the course of this story so far.  
  
It wasn't nothing different for her, not really. Rocking and comforting were things she was good at doing. The boy Gripe'd brought home lay in her lap, head on her shoulder, legs trailing over the side of her lap to leave his feet on the floor. He wasn't really a boy, but she held him that way anyway, strong granny arms around him, plumb fingers keeping sweaty hair outta his face. They sat there on her rocker through the night, his braid brushing across the clean swept wood floor and her old Hawaiian songs making their own kinda perfume around them.   
  
She didn't tell him that he'd be okay, that when he was willing to open his eyes, they'd see colors again. She didn't tell that the burns healing on his skin wouldn't leave scars. She just held his slender body near to her so that the beat of her own heart echoed into him, keeping his from just quitting.   
  
Duo didn't know how he got from the cab to this place, to the gentle rocking or the creaking of a rocker older than the colony he'd been born on. The creak of timeless comforting, worn wood on unpolished floor. The warmth and repetitive patience of her breath and comforting touches didn't exist anywhere in his world, not even with Sister Helen, really, or maybe they had. Nothing changed at all when tears pooled against his nose, soaked into the thick cotton of her mumu. Sister Helen had held him like this and he'd ruined it, destroyed her and the church and Father Maxwell, and everyone.   
  
Dark tides rose in him. Even when he opened his eyes there was nothing except black. Endless empty worthless damnation. "Why doesn't death want me?"  
  
The rocking didn't skip a beat, but big gentle fingers touched his tears, not to wipe them away, only to acknowledge them. "Death don't take the living."  
  
"I'm Death," the words were acid, refined acid that etched elegantly across his tongue, "Everything I love dies."   
  
"Who do you love?" She asked, arms wrapping around him, holding him to her, not restrictive, just getting her arms comfortable.  
  
"Heero," Duo said, voice low, just barely a whisper, but it didn't feel like that was all, felt like half an answer, "Relena, but I don't understand. I love them, but they were supposed to be together, just them. They're the perfect couple, the shining knight and the pretty princess. I thought maybe, I could hang out and be friends too, but I'm, I don't wanna be, you know, more work."  
  
"Your eyes."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"I was stupid, got caught, couldn't get away. It was a drug, gave me to make me tell them stuff and it messed up my nerves. Shoulda just killed me. Relena's so fucking stupid! She shoulda listened to me and just gotten away. Her and Heero coulda been okay and," his words turned into small whimpering sounds. Her arms tightened around him and until the sun was coming up over the trees, rudely stabbing through the slats of the shutters, she didn't say another word.  
  
"You're being blind," she said softly, patting his cheek.  
  
"I am blind. It ain't gonna get any better."  
  
"I didn't mean yer eyes," she chastised. "Now you listen to me, when I was a little girl, Hawai'i belonged to the United States still and there was those that didn't want to. So we went out and voted and it was bad, people were so mad on both sides. The day we became the Independent Nation of Hawai'i, people died in the streets, on Waikiki. Mama said for me to stay home, cuz it wasn't none of my business what crazy people do, but went out anyway. To this day, I wonder why blood don't seep into the sand different than other things, go slower, or float on top like oil. Once that blood's soaked into the sand, they're ain't no way to put it back."  
  
She shifted her weight a little and Duo sat on her lap, feeling self conscious now to be sitting on a grandmother's lap like a little kid. He let her guide his hand to her face, trace the tips of his fingers over her wrinkled and sun warmed face. Her tears felt thick and hot, and in his mind he imagined that he could see what she was talking about through them, as if touching them could transfer her memories to him. "When the Japanese came, we fought again. I was seventeen and I took to the streets though my Mama said I didn't have no place with crazy people. I lost my sight then, but I was fighting because I had learned that there's more than one way to die and the worst way is to stop believing in truth and goodness, the basic goodness in people that makes democracy work. I was chief professor of history at the Benjamin Franklin University in Honolulu for thirty years. Just because you lose your eyes does not mean that you are not strong and valuable to the ones you love. Don't belittle what you have because it's not what you planned."  
  
"It's more than just my eyes, Grandmother," he said respectfully. "It's that I'm in love with both of'em kinda and I don't wanna see either of them sad."  
  
He could hear the smile in her voice, "The Earth can't chose between the sun and the moon and the moon can not expect to be the sun."  
  
Duo scratched the back of his head, wrinkling up his nose. "Is that like Taoist or something?"  
  
She laughed, "No, it was a quote from Honey Raied. She taught philosophy. Don't you think it would be silly for the Earth to run away from the sun and the moon?"  
  
"Yeah, but I'm not the Earth, I'm more like an asteroid that knocks everything out of orbit."  
  
"That's a bad habit, this blaming things you don't like on yourself," she said, "It doesn't make them not happen, just makes you miserable in between. And I promise you, if your friends are worth loving, they'll be sadder with you dead, than with you loving one or the other of them."  
  
"You think?" Duo said, thinking how obvious that was now. He sighed. "I should go home, but can I come back here if I want?"  
  
"Of course! Any time!" She said, squeezing his arm gently, "Oh my."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Who's here?"  
  
"There's someone here?"  
  
"The moon moves silently, Duo," Heero said, voice low and lost in that wise way he had.  
  
"Heero!" Duo hopped from Gran's lap, stumbled against the bed, and fell into Heero.  
  
Fingers, stronger then a human's should be took hold of Duo's arms, both straightening and confining him. "Duo, don't leave me."  
  
Such a raw admission of vulnerability shook Duo's self-pity and his feeling of worthlessness. "Heero."   
  
Duo's finger searched up Heero's arm, to his face, seeing it brand new, in youth and worry, in the most artic of isolation. "I'll never leave you."  
  
The embrace that Heero wrapped him in was nothing that Duo had expected, but without his sight, he saw him clearer, saw the loneliness and need that expression and competence had hidden. "I love you," Heero whispered, breath hot against Duo's ear and Duo had never seen anything clearer. 


End file.
